Two years in prison for repeatedly raping an 11-year-old girl, who became a mother at 12 as a result of the sexual assaults she suffered for months. How to accept such a mild verdict? In Morocco, the condemnation, on March 20, of three people accused of having committed rapes on the young Sanaa, in a village near Rabat, continues to arouse indignation.
Faced with a qualified judgment of “scandalous”, number of associations, intellectuals and Internet users have stepped up to demand its revision and sound the alarm about the “lightness” sanctions that tends to characterize cases of sexual violence against minors and women. A sit-in is organized on Wednesday April 5 before the Court of Appeal of Rabat at the initiative of the Spring of Dignity, a coalition of Moroccan associations for the defense of human rights, while the appeal trial should open the next day.
“Two years in prison when the law provides for up to thirty years in prison for this kind of crime! What mitigating circumstances did the judges find? In this case, there are only aggravating circumstances. It is not justice that we have! », indignant Fouzia Yassine, coordinator of the coalition.
An “unacceptable injustice”
“Does that mean that a little girl’s life isn’t worth much? His physical and psychological integrity even less? Or that the culture of rape is part of the representations of the judges? Or that the female body does not deserve protection and respect in our society ? », denounced, in a text published on Facebook, the anthropologist and writer Yasmine Chami, also at the origin of a petition having collected more than 30,000 signatures to date.
The collective consternation led the Minister of Justice to react. In a statement made Saturday to the press, Abdellatif Ouahbi said “shocked” by this verdict, indicating that the public prosecutor had appealed the judgment.
First to have revealed the affair, the sociologist Soumaya Naamane Guessous had denounced, in an open letter to the Minister of Justice published on March 28 on the news site The360a “unacceptable injustice”. The university told the story of Sanaa, originally from a village near Tiflet, daughter of a shepherd and a farm worker, and out of school.
“One day in the souk when Sanaa is alone at home, she is raped by a 22-year-old man. The rape is perpetuated several times by the latter, but also by his 37-year-old uncle, and by a 32-year-old neighbor, tell the World Mme Guessous. The uncle has a niece whom he implicates in their crime: he asks her to keep watch; the teenager witnesses the rapes on several occasions. » Threatened with death if she speaks, Sanaa remains silent, again according to the testimony reported by Mme Guessous.
Mitigating circumstances granted by judges
” A day, she continues, the three men realize that Sanaa has a swollen stomach. They spread the rumor that the little girl is a wanton. That’s where it all began. » The father is alerted to these rumors by a neighbor and takes his daughter to the doctor. Sanaa is eight months pregnant. The three men are arrested. A few days later, Sanaa gives birth to a little boy: a DNA test proves that one of the rapists is her father. “However, no law obliges him to recognize the child, even less to maintain it”, deplores Mme Guessous.
On March 20, the three men were found guilty of “misappropriation of a minor” and D’“indecent assault on a minor with violence”, according to the judgment rendered by the criminal chamber of the Rabat court of appeal revealed by the site Media24. One of them was sentenced to two years in prison and the other two to eighteen months and six months suspended. The three defendants are also ordered to pay damages for a total amount of 4,500 euros. However, the rape of a minor can be punished by imprisonment of ten to twenty years according to the Moroccan penal code. A sentence increased from twenty to thirty years if there has been “defloration”.
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The delivery of the judgment reveals that the judges granted mitigating circumstances to the defendants, justifying them by their “social conditions” I’“no criminal record” and the fact that “the legally prescribed penalty is severe in view of the facts incriminated”, according to an excerpt published by Media24.
“Sexist stereotypes”
“There is a real problem of criminal procedure here: the Moroccan penal code leaves full discretion to the judges to allow the guilty to benefit from mitigating circumstances, with the effect of reducing the applicable penalties or even not applying them. This leaves them free to base their decisions on gender stereotypes, analysis Stephanie Willman Bordat, of Mobilizing for Rights Associates (MRA), an NGO based in Rabat. In cases of sexual assault on minors or women, this recourse to extenuating circumstances is very widespread in order to find excuses for the culprits and promote their impunity. In this sense, the case of the young girl from Tiflet is not isolated. » While a reform of the penal code is under study in Morocco, many voices plead for the creation of a children’s code.
In 2012, a 16-year-old girl, Amina Filali, committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist. An article of the penal code then allowed men accused of rape to escape prosecution if they married their minor victim. The death of the teenager had caused shock waves in Morocco and launched a debate on rape and women’s rights. The article was repealed two years later. “Like Amina, Sanaa is a sacrificed victim, underline Mme Guessous. I hope his ordeal will move things forward. This kind of injustice must not happen again. »